TRUE MEETS HIS FATHER.
“‘Oh, ’twas a joyful sound to hear,
Our tribes devoutly say,
Up Israel, to the Temple haste,
And keep your festal day!’”
It was Justin Morgan, singing his favorite hymn, in his light tenor
voice, and True pointed his ears to better hear the agreeable sound.
Master Morgan was not a strong man physically, and his ways were
those of a scholar and student, but he was lovable and staunch and
true, and, lilting the stave of “Mear” he set out on the road to the
southward.
Along the bank of the tranquil river stretched the highway to
Hartford, and it was Master Morgan’s plan to exhibit his new horse at
the great fair so soon to be held in that fine city.
It was near sunset when they arrived, and True stepped out so
smartly, and Justin Morgan, being a great rider, the people paused in
the streets to admire them, as they cantered easily on to the public
stable to rest and refresh themselves.
True’s name was now changed to “Figure,” the name once borne by a
famous horse, dead some years since; and under this name he came
to be known through the columns of that very respected paper, _The
Hartford Courant_.
“Next to his own father, sir,” True heard the hostler say, as he led
him into a stall and snapped the catch of the halter into the ring.
“Now what do you think of that? The horse in the next box, sir, is
Mr. Selah Norton’s Beautiful Bay, him that was True Briton.”
Master Morgan looked in at the splendid animal and said, “Oh, the
De Lancey horse, eh? A fine fellow he is still, I see, in spite of
his age. Well, all I can say is, mine is the ‘worthy son of a worthy
sire’!”
True quivered. Already the great world was offering adventure and
reward. Crowding through his veins the fire of his father’s race
throbbed and surged, his mane shook and he flicked his waving tail
with eager anticipation. His alert ears pointed back and forth
with attention, his eyes glowed and his wide nostrils trembled as
he inhaled the scent of his father for the first time. Proud and
vigorous, he pawed the floor to attract Beautiful Bay; now and then
he glanced with feigned carelessness through a wide crack.
Full soon he was rewarded by a sight of the gleaming eye of his
neighbor at the same aperture.
For a moment they gazed in silence; then True took a step forward,
and raising his nose to the top of the partition met the firm tip of
his father’s.
Without further demonstration an affection sprang up between the two.
In the course of time the hostler came to lead the new horse out, in
the deepening twilight, to show him to some visitors. The interest
True took in the performance, one could be reasonably certain, was
not on account of the visitors, but because he was well aware of his
splendid father’s interest and admiration.
That night when all was quiet the old war-horse said:
“You are like your mother, my son, I remember her well--and a fine,
noble mare she was, to be sure. Her hoof beat music from the path
and she struck the road with the same nervous tread that I see you
have--as a pigeon in full career repulses the air. She scoffed at
hills and mounted them with a dash of spirited flight, as if she
joyed in their difficulties.”
True recalled his mother’s admiration of his father, and his heart
beat gratefully at these words. He, too, remembered Gipsey’s poetic
motion, her rhythmic step, as if she trod an even melody, and her
willingness to take a hill.
* * * * *
“As his name is, so is he,
If you believe not, come and see!”
So _The Hartford Courant_ described Beautiful Bay, and the rhyme was
a by-word about the town--for they were very proud of Beautiful Bay
in Hartford. It was not long before True heard the couplet in the
stables, and right proud was he to be the son of so praised a father.
Beautiful Bay told True many stirring tales in the quiet nights they
spent so close together, for the older horse had ever been a “soldier
of Fortune” and his life one of constant change and excitement.
It was a great boast for a horse to say he had been bred in the De
Lancey stables, for those De Lanceys, like Mahommed, had been lovers
of horses, and their stables and half-mile running track, in the
centre of what was so soon to be the very heart of the great city of
New York, was the finest in the Northern Colonies before the War of
the Revolution.
Gay blades were those De Lanceys, and their rightful inheritance was
the sporting blood of old England, though they were, after all, part
Huguenot, part Dutch, by ancestry.
Colonel De Lancey, True Briton’s first owner, had married a Mistress
Van Courtlandt, whose family had a King and a Bishop at their backs,
and occupied half the important posts under the crown. He was a
rollicking, generous, reckless gentleman, at home alike in drawing
room or on the course, but when, through stress of circumstances,
this British officer had to change his mode of living, there was a
sale of his horses at John Fowler’s Tavern, near the Tea-Water Pump,
in Bowery Lane. All the favorites went but his especial saddle horse,
True Briton--who now frankly admitted to his son his worth and beauty
in those days. Indeed, he seemed to have no _false modesty_ about it
at all, and confessed his superiority over all his stable-mates, even
though among them there were such horses as Lath and Slamerkin.
According to the accounts of the old horse his youth had been spent
in a time the like of which True could never see. He told of the
gaily dressed dandies--waiting on ladies in silks and satins and
waving plumes--at the meets; of the sudden seal of disapproval
Congress had put upon the dissipations and extravagances of the
race-course; of how the Annapolis Jockey Club had set the foolish
fashion of economy by closing its course; of how the grass grew up in
the one-time splendid Centre Course at Philadelphia.
But of all his anecdotes the tale of how True Briton became a true
Patriot interested the young horse most, and ran in this wise:
Colonel De Lancey was stationed at Westchester with his regiment,
which was known far and wide as “The Cow-Boys,” because they stole
cattle from the “Skinners” (a name given the farmers at that time).
At last the latter resolved to appeal to the Colonel-in-command for a
protection of their rights and property. Accordingly, “Skinner Smith”
called upon Colonel De Lancey, a white handkerchief tied to a stick,
to show a peaceful errand, and made complaint of the depredations of
the “Cow-Boys.”
Now the Colonel, ever cool and gay, as became a De Lancey, cried out
with a great laugh:
“These be the chances of war, my lack-beard. If my good soldiers need
cattle, or food of other kind, and you will not give it to them,
egad! they must steal it! Best curb your uncouth tongue and be gone!”
“Then, by my lack of beard!” quoth Skinner Smith, nettled--he was
an impudent young scamp, and feared no one--“‘What is sauce for the
goose, is sauce for the gander!’ If these be the ‘chances of war,’
look well to that fine horse of yours! I warn you fairly, others can
be cattle stealers, too! I warn you fairly--and now wish you a very
good day.”
It chanced that under cover of darkness one night, shortly afterward,
Colonel De Lancey rode to see his mother at some distance and left
True Briton hitched at the door-step.
Young Smith, waiting his “chance of war,” sprang from behind a tree
as the door of the house closed, unhitched the horse, leaped into the
saddle and plunging spurs into True Briton’s sides--who, wide of eye
and red-nostrilled, sprang forward--did not draw rein until he was
well within the American lines.
The amazed and disgusted Colonel raised an alarm and roused his
orderlies, but too late. He never saw his favorite again until one
fine day he found himself incarcerated in the jail at Hartford with
many another “Red-Coat.”
Beautiful Bay, then in the possession of Mr. Selah Norton, was
standing in front of Bull’s Tavern, across Meeting House Green.
“Blood will tell, in men as well as horses,” finished Beautiful Bay.
“When Colonel De Lancey recognized me he threw me a laughing greeting
and a wave of the hand. I could almost hear what his parted lips were
saying: ‘The chance of war, my friend!’”